341 | Stewart Brand on Maintenance as an Organizing Principle

2026-01-19

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"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold," wrote W.B. Yeats. I don't know about the centre, but the tendency of things to fall apart is pretty universal, ultimately due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Anyone living in a society or involved with technology must therefore be interested in the concept of maintenance -- keeping systems working. In his book Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One, Stewart Brand looks at the challenges and rewards of this concept.Blog post with transcript:...

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold," wrote W.B. Yeats. I don't know about the centre, but the tendency of things to fall apart is pretty universal, ultimately due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Anyone living in a society or involved with technology must therefore be interested in the concept of maintenance -- keeping systems working. In his book Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One, Stewart Brand looks at the challenges and rewards of this concept.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/19/341-stewart-brand-on-maintenance-as-an-organizing-principle/

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Stewart Brand received an undergraduate degree in biology from Stanford University. He was the founder, editor, and publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog, which won a National Book Award. He founded the journal CoEvolution Quarterly and the WELL electronic community, and was a co-founder of the Long Now Foundation. He has been called "the 20th century's top influencer."